Policy Announcements, Friday 11 May

Government

• Businesses in five areas across the country are to benefit from NHS advice and support to improve the physical, mental and social well-being of their staff, health minister Rosie Winterton announced today. The five new demonstration projects located in Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Buckinghamshire, London and Hampshire, will share £10m of capital funding to provide better quality occupational health services (OH) for local businesses. These innovative schemes will pave the way for other trusts to develop their own occupational health services to be more effective for the benefit of the wider business community. The funding will be managed by NHS Plus, a network of NHS OH departments across England, supplying quality services to non-NHS employers.
• Gifted and talented secondary children will benefit from a wide range of out of school hours learning through leading universities, announced Schools Minister Andrew Adonis today. Run by higher education institutions, the nine 'excellence hubs' are a partnership of universities, schools and other education providers. Together they are receiving a total of £3.6million of Government funding over the next four years. From this summer, they will offer up to 3,000 places on residential and non-residential events and online courses. During the next academic year there will be more than 22,000 places available during term time, weekends and holidays.
• Local Government Minister Phil Woolas has published new legislation aimed at encouraging empty shops, offices, factory and warehouse buildings back into commercial use as part of a package to create thriving urban centres, renovate empty buildings and promote greater use of brownfield land. The new measures modernise business rate relief for empty properties and, together with a newly introduced allowance to support the renovation of empty business premises in our most deprived communities and proposals to extend tax relief's on brownfield sites, will better incentivise the re-use, redevelopment or sale of empty commercial property.

Liberal Democrats

• Commenting on the Ombudsman for Estate Agents' (OEA) announcement today that the number of complaints it received last year rose to more than 8,000, Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary, Susan Kramer MP said:"This alarming report demonstrates that we must have training and licensing for estate agents. I will be putting forward an amendment to the Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill that will require all Estate Agents to gain qualifications.